Distal - CivilizationTo say Michael Rathbun has been prominent in the past year would be an understatement, releasing on all kinds of labels big and small. It's primarily a good thing, considering he's one of the strongest personalities to come out of the whole footwork-cum-bass-music wading pool. His signing to Tectonic has perhaps been the most high-profile of all, and out of the deal comes the debut Distal album, Civilization, which surprisingly sees him abandon most of his uptempo hijinks for something a little more careful and methodic, easily comparable to Addison Groove's Transistor Rhythm.

What separates Distal's drum machine acrobatics from his Bristolian counterpart, however, is the detail and decor: from the get-go with "The Sun," which marches awkwardly like a Pearson Sound tune, the barebones wireframes are ladled with heavy doses of viscous synthesizer. It's a touch that makes otherwise ascetic tracks deceptively lush and dynamic—the plodding "House Party Five" is given a much-needed injection halfway through by heaping dollops of blurry synth.

In addition to the jittery footwork pastiche you would expect ("Drop Like This," "Boca Ratawn"), Distal minces in all kinds of hip-hop influences, from trap-rap snares to outright interpolation (the Lil Kim lovefest that is "Preach On Hustle"). Elsewhere he pays lipservice to lurching grime (the ominous LFOs of "Rattlesnake"), churning electro ("Venom") and schizoid breakbeat ("Around The Fire"). But for every moment that you could slap a genre tag onto, there are tracks that are completely unclassifiable, melding into the album's uniform palette of bare rhythms and iridescent synths but sticking out stylistically.

Bass music might ostensibly be present, but I've still never really heard anything like "Gorilla," which crawls menacingly on flat-lined bass synths before simmering with dissonant synths and computerized screeches. It's essentially black metal, both in sound and feeling. Meanwhile "Anti-Cool" moves with swooning synths, like a more solid-footed Actress track. "She Wears Pearls" closes out the album with an elegant melody underlaid by percussion that sounds like millipedes marching.

One thing that Distal takes unashamedly from footwork, even though the genre itself is only a small part of Civilization's whole, is the dislocated bass. The sometimes-threatening feel of a rumbling completely detached from the audible spectrum lends these tracks a physical power that's more implicit than aurally perceptible. This marks the difference between Distal and any number of producers who think footwork simply means repetitive vocals and herky-jerk drums.

Civilization is an odd album in a lot of ways. It feels curiously reserved even at its weirdest, and drained of colour even at its most melodic, which casts a shadow over the entire thing but makes it all the meaner in the process. It's an album of contrasts that can prove difficult and overlong one listen and breathtaking and fascinatingly complex the next, not a masterpiece by any means but a unique kind of impressive nonetheless.

7 comments

Some great tracks here, like 'peach on hustle' and 'drop like that' allso 'anticool' , from the start to the end i was going on the quote - "they didn't have that shock value or novelty of the early singles ". But i think that the album is builded in a very freestyle way, and this is what gives to the album a soul, love the way the artist found different ways to show what he likes to add on some " cool vocal loops ", on my point of view is not really easy to do this work, for example listen to 'temple people' he looped some vocals and he adds allso a very sweet taste in it with an electro classy mood, love this tricks and love the sound that comes out. Big up - Pinch knows what to sign.

Vahid, even though I've not listened to this album, that is EXACTLY what makes a good album to me. Maybe not a great album, but a good album...rather than just another large collection of tracks. It's easy to just throw together a bunch of loose ends that happen to be jackin' tracks in their own right, but don't seem to cohere into whole package that's enjoyable from start to finish...it's a little more gratifying to get a long-player that's actually had some thought put into it as a proper album.

this is kind of a lame and generic thing to say BUT i might give both of those albums a little more time, i was also initially disappointed with these albums because they didn't have that shock value or novelty of the early singles but i find them to ultimately be more balanced and listenable than an hour straight of distal or addison groove singles.

it is surprisingly easy to put these albums on the stereo and do your thing around the house or in the car or headphones or whatever and not feel the need to skip tracks or put on something else which is kind of how the nonstop intensity of the singles feels. it is kind of an accomplishment imo to put together a listenable 60-80 minute album from a genre so intense as "footwork" (sort-of-footwork anyway), i don't think the bangs & works comps really managed it, as much as i love the individual tracks on them.